Saturday, January 31, 2009

Scientists in switzerland have just revealed a new robot they've invented which has the ability to 'sweat' so it can test clothes. Of course why they decided to spent all this money on inventing a robot rather then just saving it a hiring a actual person to test the clothes I have no idea. Maybe they decided they had too much money lying around :-)

Despite all the warnings in the news the big 'cold snap' hasn't yet hit. Although to be fair it apparently is supposed to be really starting until tomorrow afternoon. Still I think theres a good chance knowing our luck that the weather null zone will do it's usual bang up job of giving us different weather to everywhere else in the UK. If it doesn't and it is snowy and icy all week I won't mind as I am off work after all and I shouldn't have to venture out into the big wide world as it were.

Shopping involved the usual fun and games this morning of trying to get through the crowds as there were lots of people in town. Probably all happy that it was finally pay day and January is about to end. Which is a scary thought in a way as it means that we're already one month into 2009.

I did pop into waterstones ( thats bookshop for anyone who doesn't know) to have a look to see if I could find a new book to read. In a change to the norm I am considering trying a book out side my usual selection of either Sci-fi, Fantasy or a History book. This was mainly prompted by me catching a bit of a film version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde last night which made me realise that dispite being what most people could call exceptionally well rid I haven't really read any 'classics'. Books like Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula or Frankenstein, although I have seen umpteen film versions of each. Okay I know all of the books I've listed there are what you could call fantasy but I think they could be referred to as 'classics'. I have read some shakespeare although not seen college and my GCSE's. We had to read Hamlet which was interesting in a sense of I'm glad this thing isn't anymore complicated or I might not understand anything of whats going on.

So if anybody has any suggestions for a 'classic' I could try please let me know and I'll give it a try.

Demons was on again tonight and once again it was merely adequate. I think if it wasn't meant to be a 'family style show' along the lines of Doctor who and so could be a bit 'darker' it might have a chance to evolve into something really interesting as it has a lot of potential which looks likley never to be tapped as the shows ratings keep plunging. Still it's the last episode next week and I guess we'll see what it's eventual fate will be. On the plus side that does mean that Primeval will be back soon which had improved greatly by the end of it's last season.

Friday, January 30, 2009

It's not too often that you see a great example of poetic justice in the news these days. Two arsonists who were trying to set fire to a pub managed to bungle the job quite badly whilst using petrol. They somehow managed to set their own feet alight. They quickly fled the scene, jumping into a car. However as both of these arsonists had already shown they didn't have much i nthe way of brains ( they had been trying to commit arson after all) they jumped into the car without putting the flames on their legs out. A very shory distance down the road the flames on their legs managed to set fire to the car prompting the two arsonists to jump out and attempt to flee. One later went to hospital claiming that he had burnt himself trying to light a barbacue. It doesn't say how he attempted to explain the use of petrol.

The Health and safety brigade have one again been keeping themselves very busy. Now not only to egg containers now have to carry the warning " Warning this products contain eggs" (well d'uhh!) now milk bottles and I mean the big huge see through milk bottles where you can clearly see the milk and also have huge labels on saying 'milk' now also have to carry a allegy warning that says " Warning contains milk". I think that if someone who is allegic to milk can not figure out that a milk bottle full of milk contains well milk then they've got other things to worry about.

Work was good and I was able to get everything totally cleared and I was able to even perform a few 'get ahead' tasks for when I go back to work a week on Monday which is good as it will let me hit the ground running as it were. Still that's a week away so I don't need to think about that for a while.

We also had a games night after work which was a lot of fun. A new guy in out office bought this card game called Munchkin, it's almost impossible to describe and very bizare but it was a tremendous amount of fun.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

I find myself at some what of a loose end this evening as I was supposed to be going home teaching. Unfortunatly the one person who we did manage to get an appointment with forgot and has gone out home teaching with the Elders. So I now have a free evening when I was expecting one. Not that I'm complaining along the lines of " Oh woe is me I have a free evening" etc, it's more I have a free evening when Iwas expecting it and now have nothing that needs to be done urgently, so I'm a bit stuck. Now I probably haven't explained that very well at all but thats just how things are right now.

I also had a odd morning as I woke up and got up then suddenly realised that I wasn't sure that my alarm had actually gone off although when I woke up I was sure it had been. I looked at my alarm clock and realised it hadn't gone off and I had nearly two more hours before I had to get up. I went back to bed hoping that it wasn't going to be a sign for the day to come.

However despite this the day went quite well. I was able to get a lot cleared and I should hopefully have it all cleared by tomorrow in time to go on Holiday. So i think thats qualifies as a big 'Yah me!"

A school was in the news today as they decided to invite a dance company to put on a performance at the school ( a secondary school by the way) to show a fitness dance (mainly aimed at girls for reasons you will understand in a minute) that pupils could use to keep fit. Now I'm sure you'll agree that this was a very worthy aim indeed. However the teachers must have had a blind spot the size of jupiter not to see the outcry that was going to errupt. Why an outcry? Well the dance that they asked the dance company to come and show was 'fitness' pole dancing. Apparently a packed crowd of 1000 pupils watched the demonstration. Most of them lads I bet! How could the teachers not have seen this outcry coming? Is there a common sense shortage in this country or something?

The head of the company who put the dancing display on said

"I am really angry that bad pole dancing stereotypes are being thrown in my face, I am annoyed to think that many mainstream pop groups seem to promote inappropriate behaviour far more than my pole dancing classes.'If anything my classes empower women and therefore encourage them to be in control of their bodies.'"

still dispite her trying to sell the dance classes as totally innocent I'm fairly certain we won't be seeing them in schools on a regular basis. Or church activities either :-)

The PC Brigade have also been busy again. A charity has reworked the old nursery rhyme " what shall we do with a drunken sailor" as it contains references to alchol. All such references have now been removed so instead of being drunk the sailor is now grumpy and instead of being sent to the brig till he's sober you now make him do a little jig and make him smile.

I would get annoyed but I'm too depressed over the high likely hood that whoever thought that up was paid a stupid amount of money to do so.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Well according to the Weathermen this winter is on course to be the coldest for 13 years and their forecasting yet another cold snap is due to hit the UK fairly soon. I wouldn't mind all this cold weather if we would at least get some snow so we could have a decent snowball fight or be able to build a decent snowman but alas the weather null zone that seems to surround Leicester continues to hang around and it will probably be the case that the rest of the country could get buried in thick snow and we'd still end up with bright blue skies.

Work was good if busy as I had a couple of meetings and there was a big event on this evening that I agreed to help out at. This did mean that I had to miss institute but seeing as I usually attend every class missing one once in a while wouldn't be that bad. The event was interesting as we did have some authors attend and I was able to have a good conversation with one ( plus get a book signed for Mechanicus). It also caused me to reflect how good my job can be as I could get chances like this to talk to one of my favourite authors

Well there's only two more days left in the week so I've got a lot to do to make sure that my desk is clear as it were ready for my weeks holiday. After all it's always better to clear stuff before you go rather then knowing it's going to be there waiting for you when you come back.

I was pleased to see that the next book in one of my favourite series, The honor harrington series, well I say next book it's technically a spin off but it's a bit more complicate then that and if I tried to explain it would probably take a couple of pages. Right where was I , oh yes the next book in the series is due to be released soon Yaah! But only in the US Booh! For some reason I don't know why the series isn't published in the UK. I guess I'll have to wait until someone like borders impots it or it appears on Amazon and hope the exchange rate doesn't make it really exspensive.

Still on the plus side it's not like I'll be stuck for reading material with five bookshelves full of books.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Well teh weather once again decided to change it's mind this morning, so I woke up to thick fog as far as the eye could see which as it was foggy was not that far :-) The Car was also iced up so I had to clear that before I could go anywhere. Of course with my luck the ice was just thick enough so the de icer wasn't doing a thing. So I ended up having to scrap all the windows by hand. It was whilst I was cleaning the windscreen I got the sense that I was being watched. I turned round to see Owen sitting in the Lounge window with a confused look on his face, watching me obivously trying to figure out what the heck I was doing.

Now when I say he was sitting in the window I mean literally as we have a 'bay' window with a very large ledge. Now Owen used to jump up and sit on the back of one of our sofas and look out of the window as he is incredibly nosey ( I'll be honest) however this meant he was starting to get the back fo the sofa very mucky and damage it a bit. After moving the lounge back after Christmas Grumpy decided not to put the sofa back where it was in order to stop Owen from jumping on it's back because if it wasn't by the window he couldn't use it to look out of the window. I'll agree that his logic was sound but both of us forgot how stubborn Owen can be. He now simply jumps up onto the ledge and sits there looking out. This is now worrying Grumpy as he thinks Owen might damage the Window one day if he keeps jumping up. Well I suggested we can either put the sofa back or try and find someway of stopping him jump up. So it looks like a case of deciding which is the lesser of two evils :-)

Getting to Work was slow as the fog was really, really thick on the way in. Although it was far from the worst I had seen it. Fortunatly most of the idiot drivers seemed to have decided to stay home.

Work was good if slow as the office was half empty so it was very quiet and that does start to make time drag. Still the companies half year results were published today and they were very, very good which really helped to give people a energy boost as all our hard work over the first six months of the year really, really paid off.

We also had some new books arrive which is always interesting. They weren't ones I was especially looking out for but I'll still read them as there have been books before that I weren't looking out for which proved to be very good reads indeed. I'll probably remember them either way as my memories pretty good like that. I'd say it's almost photographic as you could probably pick out any book from our imprints and I'll be able to give you a basic plot outline at the very least. Now I say my memories almost photographic as I can remember stuff like that but ask me where I just put my keys or my pen and I'm pretty useless.

It seemed to be a day for horrible driving weather as it was raining when I came out of work, in that really annoying little thin drizzle which leads to lots of water on the road and in the air. Plus there was a really large traffic jam as well which meant it took a hour to get home. Well at least Grumpy had dinner ready as soon as I walked through the door so it wasn't all bad :-)

In the news today ( and don't ask me why this was considered news worthy I have no idea) the Pussycat Dolls are 'returning' to their 'burlesque' roots with the video to their new Song which apparently their hoping will reach number one. I'm sure this decision to return to their roots has nothing to do with the fact that their last single when they were fully clothed ( or at least what passes for fully clothed for them) didn't make it into the top ten where as the songs with videos where their wearing as little as possible seem to do much better. I'm sure theres no connection there whatsoever.

Red Dwarf is also returning for a two part special over the Easter Holidays which should be interesting as it's not being produced by the BBC by a freeview channel called Dave and yes I have got that right we have a digital channel called Dave. However if you don't have freeview your not going to be able to see it but fortunatly we do!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Well it's almost the end of January, already! Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday it was new years eve.

Well this morning started how most Mondays do, with much grumbling and the wishing that I could have just five more minutes in bed. Still that's never a good plan to have five extra minutes as if I stay in bed there's always a chance I'll go back to sleep then that extra five minutes would turn into an extra half an hour then I would really be in trouble :-)

There was then the Monday morning traffic which seemed to be in line with how most people feel on a Monday morning. Very slloowww. Still if there is one advantage to sitting in traffic it does give you more time to wake up.

Work was very busy as it always is on a Monday. Still I was able to get most of it out the way which I was quite pelased with as that should give me more time to work on two of my projects for the rest of this week and hopefully ( touch wood) get them more or less finished before I go on Holiday.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

I've been sitting here for a while trying to write todays post but I've been drawing a big blank. Zip, nada, nothing is coming to mind. However it's not the usual 'drawing a blank' that I have suffered from, as I have done stuff today and there is stuff to write about it but the post just doesn't seem to be formed as I want it to. I've already tried started it three times and just any up with a jumble of words that makes even less sense then my writing usually does :-)

In fact I've written this post in two parts as I wrote the first paragraph then went away before coming back and writing the rest of this post which is why things might seem like a little disjointed.

I was watching poirot during this break which did set my thoughts off on random tangents ( and I may have mentioned this before, so forgive me if I am repeating myself). Why does he keep getting invites to parties or dinners or weekend aways? Where ever he goes people seem to inevitably end up dead. If I were a party organiser I would definately cross him off the list, along with that women from Murder she wrote, Miss Marple, Jonathan Creek or anybody from any of the CSI teams asI would be more interested in everyone surviving the weekend rather then having anyone drop dead. And the other thing that I started to wonder is that if he's the worlds most famous detective why does the murderer usually wait for him to get there before commiting the deed. Why not wait till he was in his car and going off down the driveway? Also why does the murderer always turn up when Poirot calls everybody together at the end? And finally why does no one ever try to kill Poirot off first. Your much more likely to get away with the deed if you kill the world famous detective first.

We took Owen out for a walk this afternoon which is loved as always. Unfortunatly he managed to wreck his frisbee by accidently running over it when he couldn't stop in time, it was a quite impressive stop as when he tried to skid to a halt he hit a boggy patch in the field so there was a huge spray of mud and water everywhere. So we will have to get him a new frisbee and hopefully the next one will last longer. Still, he has his tennis ball so that should keep him happy for the time being and let him run off some energy. Admitally the hope that he will run off some energy is a bit of a forelorn one as he does seem to be the dog equivilant of the energiser bunny but we can hope.

I got a multi-pack of some of those new walkers crisp flavours for Grumpy to try. The pack had three kinds in, Fish and Chips, Crispy Duck and hosin and Cajun squirrel. Grumpy managed to finish one packet fo the fish and chips, he only managed to finish one crisp of the Crispy duck and I think he managed about half a crisp of the Cajun squirel flavour. If a picture is worth a thousand words the looks of disgust that crossed his face when he tried the last two would each be worth an encyclopedia.

Monday tomorrow which means the start of another week full of opportunities. Hopefully I will be able to get as much done as possible as I am taking next week off as Holiday. I'm not going anywhere but I figured now was a good a time for a break as any.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I was woken up this morning by Owen choosing to announce that the post had arrived in his own unique way. Charging down the stairs barking at the top of lungs and leaping at the door. However in a change to his usual habits he then proceeded to pull the post from the door and charge round the house with it with Grumpy in hot pursuit trying to reclaim it before it recieved too many teeth marks. I do feel sorry for the postman he must get really nervous when trying to deliver the post. Owen probably looks very intermidating seeing him leaping into the air as high as he does.

Loughborough seemed to be fairly quiet this morning. I was rather surprised to see that one of the shopping centres in Loughborough was advertising a valentines event they would be holding where the main selling point was that you could meet a Del boy ( a characters from a UK TV show called Only fools and Horse for anyone who doesn't know) look a like. So they haven't got a celebrity coming to this event but a look alike. Hmmm? I simply went away very confused and wondering how they connected a del boy look alike with Valentines day and if I had missed the point somewhere.

It looks increasingly likely that zaavi is on the way out as they've now increased their offers to 25% off. However despite the increase they don't appear to be getting any new stock in so it's not useful to me as they don't have anything I want.

The episode of Demons tonight was much improved and the main reason for that? Well they focussed on Mina who is by far the best character. However the big 'reveal' of the episode had been revealed weeks ago in press interviews. So anyone who had read these reviews or the novel Dracula was not surprised by the 'revelation' that Mina was a vampire. Ruby is still by far the most annoying character and when she came face to face with the 'evil of the week' another vampire I couldn't help but hope that he was going to make her a meal and not in the sense Xander from Buffy would believe" their going to cook her dinner?" Still the episode was good indication that the show still has plenty of potential. Now if they can only find a way to tap that.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Anyone who was reading yesterday may remember me mentioning that today I was going to be playing my first game of Warhammer historical as part of that project I'm doing for work. As you may have guessed by the title of this post the game did not go well. Or to put it another way my army was pounded! I managed to kill one model from the oppositions army. Just one! To say the dice againist me seemes like an understatement. I was sure they were loaded dice at one point. Still even though I lost several people said I could claim a moral victory as my army was painted. My opponents was not, as some of her models were not just unpainted, they weren't even undercoated either! Which I know may not seem like a huge issue but it's a pretty big issue at HQ to see people playing with unpainted models. We're talking major heresy. One person even suggested I should have refused to play him!

As you can see some people take gaming very seriousily indeed. You can also see why some people think gamers should get out more :-)

Work was good if very busy as I seemed to have a lot of meetings today. Which is strange for a Friday. I also had to take Grumpys car to work as one of my headlights went in my car yesterday and needed to be replaced. Grumpy said it would be easier if I took his for today and he took mine to the garage to get a new bulb. Of course I did have to put some petrol in on the way into work. Which I'm sure provided a great source of amusement to the girl manning the petrol station as when i pulled into the station I parked up 'automatically' forgetting that there's one important difference between Grumpys car and mine. Yes, the petrol cap is on the other side of the car!

Oh well, if that's the stupidist mistake I make this week I will be happy. I did notice however that the cost of petrol is creeping up again. I'm not sure why that is the case.

Anyway it's the weekend now so time to forget work for a couple of days and how much my skills at historical suck right now. In my defence it was my first ever game so hopefully things will get better.

I hope,

I did notice in the news that a Guardmen outside of St James palace lost his temper with a mickey taking student (thats uni student not school student) and rushed at him giving him a clip round the back of the head and aimed a kick at him. Unfortunatly for the guard the incident was caught on camera and he's probably in a whole lot of trouble now. Apparently a friend of the student who was recording the whole event ( including the student taking the mickey out of the guardsmen, the footage is probably alreadyon you tube) said they stopped filming as they were frightened and thought "Oh My God, he's got a gun and he's going for Nick". He grabbed him and tried to boot him. " Oh well maybe the whole saga has taught the student a valuable lesson. Making fun of a man with a gun is never a good idea.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Although the news seems to be getting more and more depressing this week it's also showing a potentially worrying trend of certain people in Britain seem to be loosing their grip on reality. Well either that or to put it another way Common sense seems to be rapidly disappearing. For example as I mentioned yesterday members of the coastguard now have to fill in a health and safety form consisting of four or five questions before setting out on a rescue.

Well today bought more rather bizare news. Council bosses are now sending out army heat detector vans down streets to take thermal pictures of homes so they can then use this to see which house owners are wasting energy and use it to 'shock them' into taking action. I mean come on and have they got nothing better to spend our council taxes on like say Roads?

Two girls were also sent home from school for being 'too blonde' and told that they should die there hair brown.

But by far the most baffling news story of the day is a council finance chief who was allowed to keep his job after emigrating to Australia. He used to be on £100,000 a year, but he nows earns £20,000 a year for doing the equivilant of one days work a week for this UK council whilst he lives in Australia. In fact he even appeared at the latest council meeting to give the budget by video link. So he's the finance minister for a UK council whilst living on the otherside of the world and earns 20 grand a year for working one day a week. Apparently he was described as 'very upbeat' in the video link up. Well I think anyone would sound upbeat if they have the deal this guy has!

I would.

Work was good. We had a bit of a move round in the office today which was fun. I now have someone sitting at the desk next to me again, so I'm going to have to get used to having someone sitting there again. I'll also have to remember to look before I push my chair back otherwise I might keep banging into him.

I'm also playing my first game tomorrow of Warhammer historical where I'll be using the roman army I've been building. Well if I loose at least a report of the battle won't go on the official website so everybody can see how much I sucked..... Oh wait...

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

After all the hype of yesterdays big news story ( I'll give you three guesses what it was but you'll only need one) it seemed to be back to business as usual today with the news, with the depressing: Unemployment up again. The worrying: The Coastguard now have to fill in a risk assessment form before setting out on rescues and the downright bizare; as a female 'mind reader' almost drowned on live TV when she had to guess the four digit code to open a lock to let her out of a tank which was slowly filling with water. As you might have already guessed she failed and a stagehand had to rush in with a pair of boltcutters to get her out.

Work was roughly about the same as yesterday. Still busy but I was able to get a lot of the stuff I needed to done, so I was feeling quite pleased with myself by the end of the day. It was also interested as the guys who make historical wargames had a demostration game on of their latest gaem Trafalger. Which is a naval combat game using ships from ( and I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear this) from around the time of trafalger. It looks interesting but I've got no interest in starting to play yet another new game right now. I'm still trying to finish my Roman army first.

Institute was interesting as ( and this will take far too long to explain otherwise and it may sound morbid but it wasn't) Bro H asked us to think about what we would like the words on our tombstones to say. I went with a quote I heard once " Death is more universal then Life, everybody dies but not everybody lives". Chemistry went with " I want Fresh flowers" , one of the girls went with " Lived, Loved, Died" but I think the best one went to Physics with his choice of " See you soon".

The weather has also taken a turn for the worse again as it's now extremely windy and rainy. I got home just in time from institute!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Although it wasn't quite as busy as yesterday I was still rushed off my feet most of the day at work. The computers didn't help as they seemed to be in a difficult mood as when we got one issue sorted another decided to come along. Still the IT team eventually got everything sorted, I don't know the full details but I'm sure it used some sort of Hammer :-) As that usually seems to work.

Grumpy hasn't had a good day as when he took Owen out for a walk due to a unexpected encounter with some ice and Owe pulling at the wrong moment he ended up flat on his back. He claims he's hurt his elbow and back but his main concern is that he hasn't got any bruises because in his words " It's hard to get sympathy if you don't have any bruises"

I've also finished listening to that audio book we have just produced. It's good if a little weird as when you read this series you have your own idea in your head as to what the characters sound like and to hear them being voiced in a audiobook is a little bit, well odd. It's hard to describe really but I'm sure you all know what I mean.

Well insitute tomorrow which should be interesting as Bro H is back. We had a substitute teacher last week. Speaking of which both our regular teacher and substitute teachers weren't around last sunday so we had to have a substitute substitute teacher!

Monday, January 19, 2009

Apparently according to 'experts'( not that I can for the life of me imagine how someone becomes an expert on this) today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. How they figure that out I have no idea but I guess that's today random fact for you all :-)

and if experts said so it must be true :-)

The rain was back this morning, really dreary heavy rain which was really depressing in it's monotony. Just the thing you need for a Monday morning when your trying to wake up and wondering if it really was a good plan to totally cut out all caffine!

Right ehh, sorry about that. In case you hadn't guessed it was really, really was one of those mornings.

And then I got to work, where I was proven wrong in the sense of describing last week busy as it got really, really, really, really, really, really..... ( you get the idea) busy today. It was also one of those kind of busys where times flies. It felt like I got to my desk logged in, started work, then it was Lunchtime all of a sudden.

We had YSA FHE tonight which in a change was actually all sports which we went up and played at the chapel. There was a game was a rather odd version of netball mixed with marking styles take nfrom basketball, dodgeball and hockey. Admitally I might have looked like an idea running around the hall, esapecially in the first game when it order to make it obivous one of the girls bought out a load of headbands from her bag and insisted we wear them. Quite what she was doing with that many headbands in her bag I have no idea. Still it was a lot of fun, even if chemistry demonstrated a knack for throwing a spong football surprisingly hard. I do have a few pics. I'll post them tomorrow.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Well the weather had calmed down somewhat by this morning with Blue skys and sun once again although it did rain more or less all night.

However Grumpy got up just before I left for church to ask if I could quickly take Owen out as he was feeling unwell. In fact Grumpys been in bed pretty much all day. So I did have to quickly taken owen out on the green, once again extremely overdressed as I had already put my suit on by this point. That's two weeks I've been overdressed for doing something on a Sunday. I wonder if something will crope up next week because as they say things usually happen in threes :-)

Tap Dance came over mid afternoon to help take Owen out. She also found a tennis ball for him to play with which he thought was the best game ever especially when he figured out if he bought it back we would throw it for him again! Of course with so much rain last night, Owen ended up pretty much caked head to foot in mud, which meant we had to clean him off outside before we could let him in, which he thought was also an incredibily fun game.

Work tomorrow, so there will be a fun week of oppotunities again. Still one of the most tedious tasks for the month is now out of the way as I did that last week so hopefully I will have time to start a couple of new projects this week.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Well with the forecast of heavy rain and winds I was excepting it to be not very nice weather wise when I got up this morning and had visions of me getting very wet whilst doing the shopping. What I was not excepted was a completely clear blue sky with a blazing sun! Of course we should have realised that it was really was the 'Calm before the storm' because as soon as it got Dark the rain and the wind started and it hasn't let up all evening. It's been really pouring it down, rain lashing the windows, trees being blown left and right and the wind whistling through the letterbox in a way which is half annoying, half creepy.

Amazingly despite most shops having sales, Icelands seem to have decided to start putting their prices up as they've done away with a lot of their deals and it's now £1 for a loaf of bread. I hope this isn't sign that their in trouble or anything.

I also had a quick look in Zaavi as their still having massive sales ( now 20% off the sale prices) unfortunately most of the stuff I would buy, I don't have. Although on reflection I don't know if that might not be a bad thing.

The next episode of Demons was on tonight and yet again it was 'okay'. I think the trouble is the makes seem to be struggling to decide whether or not it should be on the same level as Doctor Who or if it should be darker, so they seem to be ending up in a middle ground most of the time which is neither one thing or another which is what's causing the show to be merely 'okay'. The character of Mina is still by far the best character, the worst is the character of Ruby the girlfriend of the 'hero'. She was trying to defuse a bomb in this episode ( don't ask) and I found myself half hoping that it would actually go off and that would be the end of her.

Friday, January 16, 2009

One of the good things about Fridays is that the traffic is alwaya a lot lighter. I don't know if it's anything to do with schools or if a lot of people don't work on Fridays, or work late, but theres just a lot less traffic around.

Not that I'm complaining in the slightist mind you. It's just one of those annoying little things you notice when you drive to work.

Still Work is now done for the week. It was another busy day to round off what was a very busy week. Still at least it did feel like it was a very productive week. It would have just been annoying to have been busy all week and not feel like I had got anything done.

It's the weekend now so two whole days to do whatever I want, well as much as I can after you take out the time for shopping and church :-) But I'm all sure you get what I mean.

Of course most of the weekend will probably be spent inside the house feeling grateful for the invention of central heating as rain and winds of 90mph are supposed to be hitting the UK.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

With the closure of Woolworths we seemed to loose any important local landmark as it were. There's always been a woolies and I still remember the funs times I had when I was younger going to get pic and mix there. Well I learnt today that another important local landmark is about to disppear as well. The Tales of Robin hood attraction in the centre of Nottingham has closed and will close for good as from the 6th February. I'll admit that it wasn't the most modern attraction but it was still a lot of fun and I remember several visits to it throughout my childhood with school, friends, family and quite often visitors from the USA who always found it interesting and were also confused by the fact that Nottingham castle doesn't look like what most people imagine a 'proper castle' too.

Still I can't say I blame them as in most Robin hood films or TV series Nottingham castle is shown as a huge medieval castle with walls, towers, battlements and gates. Still accuracry was never the strong point in some films about Robin hood. If you believe Robin Hood Prince of thieves it's possible to arrive at the White cliffs of Dover, get to Hardians wall then get back to Nottingham all within 24 hours. You would struggle to do that in a car let alone on foot!

Must stop ramblings about historical accuracy otherwise I'll start going on about the tudors!

Work was good but also extremly busy as I had a lot of books to distribute around the building, which did take it's time. But I was able to get it all done by the end of the day which is the most important thing.

I got home to find it all a bit Marie celestish as there was vegatables in pans a pie in the oven, but no Grumpy. Who had, had to pop out for a few minutes but forgot to leave me a note. Still atleast he was back fairly quickly before I had to try and figure out whatever point dinner was too.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Despite the weather seeming to have decided that it was going to get milder, it abruptly changed it's mind this morning with a vengence when it got so icey overnight it took me nearly fifteen minutes of scraping to clear the car of ice to a point where the de-icer would work!

There was also a lot of fog about which did lead to the electiricity pylons looking like something out of the way of the worlds as all you could see was the tops of the pylons looking out of the fog. You couldn't see the power cables or anything. Okay well I guess you had to be there to get the true oddity of how they looked. I probably only noticed as I got stuck in a huge traffic jam and basically moved nowhere for ten minutes so my mind had started to wonder a bit. Well that or I didn't have the heater on high enough to stop my brain from freezing :-)

Work was good if again rather busy which seems to have become the theme for the week. I also had my six month review which went very well so I was quite happy by the end of the day.

Institute was interesting even if it started late as there was nobody with a key to let us into the stake centre. Heck we couldn't even get into the car park. Fortunately somebody turned up who did have a key so we could get into the building. We had a substitute teacher again as Bro H was off somewhere. We also had a new class member, an American girl who has just moved over here with her family. She has been struggling a bit with the cold over here which I can well understand as it must have been a shock to come from Califonia to a English winter.

I couldn't help but admire the fact that someone in the protesters againist the third runway at heathrow finally came up with a good idea to stop the runway which was genius in it's simplicity. Instead of mounting protests or trying to block the runway and thus delayed people and getting them angry so their less likely to support the protesters. One group of protesters has bought up the land which the runway is planned to be on and are now refusing to sell. Not that I'm saying I support one side or the other but I do admire ideas that are clever like that. Their achieving their way and not alienating potential supporters something they don't do too often.

anyway my thoughts are starting to ramble a bit now as it's getting late.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I saw a story in the news today about the surge in certain businesses in Japan where you can hire 'friends', or someone to pretend to be your mother, father, husband, wife and you can also hire pets as well. So I suppose if a similar service evers starts in UK we could always see if they want to hire Owen. It could work..... Then again it probably wouldn't as he casues enough trouble with people he knows, let alone people he doesn't.

Speaking of which we're starting to think that whoever Owens first owner it was quite likely they were a women as he always seems to behave and listen to commands from Tap Dance much more then he listens to commands from me and Grumpy. Of course it could just be a case of Tap Dance scares him so much he doesn't dare not listen to her.

Work was good, if again rather busy. Still I was able to get most of the stuff out of the way that I needed to today which was good. Plus something rather cool should be arriving tomorrow. The second audiobook we've produced should appear in the office and I'm interested to listen to it as unlike the first audiobook we did, this one has been specifically written to be a audio book it is not an adaption of a previously published work.

We've also had a new book arrive sort of , as it is a book we have previously published but it's being released in a new format with a new cover. It's called Kethani and I know this is going to sound slightly biased but it's really rather good. There are a lot of sci fi books out there that tell stories of when Aliens arrive on Earth. But I don't know of any others which tell it from the point of view of a group of friends who meet in a yorkshire pub!

Channel five have announced that their doing a new series of Minder, a classic series which ended about 15 years ago now. I'm not sure how much of a success it will be but I guess we'll see. It did make me wonder about whether there is a shortage of new ideas as there seems to be a lot of films and TV shows about that are either spin offs, sequels or 're-imaginings'. Not that, that's totally bad. Battlestar Galactica was a reimagining/remake and it's awesome. Actually thinking about it I suppose it's probably not down to a lack of new ideas, more that they don't want to take a risk of something new when they can use an idea that's proven/might already have a fan base.

What do people think? What TV shows would you like to see bought back/reimagined?

I did hear a rumour that quite a shocking event happened in Eastenders on Christmasday. Nobody got married and nobody died! Wait! What? That can't be right :-) Still I suppose that all the death in the square has given the emergency service lots of pracise so their now very fast, apparently their record to arrive from the time someone says I'm calling 999 turning up on screen is 8 seconds. And there was no jump cut or anything.

Still at least that was slightly more believable then Sunset beach which featured the worlds slowest moving tidal wave. It took a week to hite a cruiser line :-) Ahh Sunset beach now that was a fun show.

Well I suppose I'd better leave it there before I go off on a completely uncontrolled ramble.

Long time readers may remember that I have features photos from my 'ork army' before. I use this army in a tabletop wargame called Warhammer 40,000.

Well at the weekend I decided to do some modelling and I know I promised you some work in progress shots of my latest creations.

The first model I made was a 'conversion' which basically is as it sounds. You take a standard model that is produced then you convert it to make it look totally different.This is how the model I used looks in it's standard form. Just put together and painted with no alterations or tweaks.

and these two pictures show what the model looks like once I had finished and gave it a basic paint job.

I'm actually quite pleased how it turned out considering it was a very much spur of the moment conversion the inspiration for which just suddenly came to me.

But I didn't stop there. After converting one model I decided to convert a whole squad.

This is the first part of my squad of 'Flash Gitz' who are armed with 'snazzguns' (gotta love the Ork names). I only started painting them today so the paint scheme is still a big rough and spotty in place. The Giant red eyes ( the circle with the silver edge and red bit in the middle) are the Gitz in built 'gitfinders', which are basically a sort of inbuilt targetter.

and this is the complete squad with their new leader Kaptain Badrukk who I decided to get after seeing him in the shop and realised he wears a pirates hat. Stupid I know but not every army is cool enough to have a character with a pirate hate. Armies like those Rubbish Tau or dull Space Marines (saxon now waits with baited breath to see if Engineseer or Photoshop will rise to the bait :-)

Monday, January 12, 2009

Well it started to rain this morning and it pretty much hasn't stopped since. A really slow, monotonous gloomy kind of rain.

Just the sort of weather you want on a Monday morning.

Still at least it wasn't cold and it could have been worse. I could have to bike into Work. Although I suppose I shouldn't say that otherwise on what ever sunny/hot days we do get this year I'll probably get stuck in a traffic jam watching the cyclists waltz on by.

Work was busy and long. Still most of the really difficult stuff is out of the way which is good and will hopefully lead to a quieter week. Still I've probably just fated myself by saying that but c'est la vie I guess.

I also saw a story which I'm sure would cause all parents reading it a sigh of relief that it wasn't there child, then a moment of panic as to how much their child has used their phone this month, followed by not so subtle attempts to find out. The story? Well a Father was horrified to recieve a 440 page, (thats right 440 pages) mobile phone bill from his teenage daughters mobile phone provider. In one month she had sent 14,528 text message which worked out to a average of 484 a day or to put it another way one text message every two minutes she was awake. Fortunately for the parents they had signed her up for the unlimited text plan otherwise the bill would have been in thr region of nearly 3000 dollars. Wow, I thought Black Widow texted a lot but he has nothing on this girl. What was she talking about the whole time? and how many of those text messages simply said K or LOL? So parents with teenagers, has the paranoria started yet after reading that :-) he, he, he, he, he....

I came home to find Owen siting in his basket in front of the radiator looking very mournful indeed. Apparently as it was raining really hard here all day Grumpy wasn't able to take him out for a long walk. Which I suppose from Owen's point of view doesn't make a lot of sense. He usually goes in the stream and gets very wet anyway and we're not bothered so why are we bothered if he gets wet from the rain rather then the stream? and I'm sure he's not bothered if we get wet because he would still get his walk.

I'm still thinking about changing the look of the blog as it's been a while since I did it last. I've asked one of my colleagues of work from our design team if he has any suggestions, so stay tuned to see what he may come up.

In the spirit of continuing to steal, errr, borrow ideas ( and if your going to steal, steal from the best) I was inspired by one of Nemesis's recent posts , whose blog looks really cool after her recent layout change.. Right sorry, ever so slight tangent there, to realise a good way to follow one of Drat's suggestions about what to do if I ever find myself struggling for a blog topic in case of a day where nothing but the same old, same old happens.

Okay that rather rambling paragraph was a rather roundabout way of saying that I would like input or suggestions from you dear readers as I know there are some of you out there, google anayltics tells me so, of any topics you would like me to write about, news you would like me to give an opinion on or a question you would like me to answer that I can keep on tap to write about on a quiet day ( and yes I know this is identical to Nemesis's idea, I'm hoping she'll be in a good mood and forgive me for being shameless) Of course I'll only consider nice suggestions only! If your going to leave a nasty suggestion please feel free to move along and never come back!

I've managed to kick my tetris addiction, however I only managed to do that by becoming addicted to another game on Facebook called Mob wars instead ( if your on facebook and on my friends list please feel free to join my mob I need all the people I can get!). The slightly amusing thing is though that it keeps listing what I've been doing in the game on my wall. So anyone who would happen to glance too quickly at my wall without reading the first part of the sentence saying it was a game would no doubt be confused to see that I've just completed a jewellery robbery!

Emperor: Come to the Dark Side young saxonme: No thanks mate, I'm already on the geek side and that's probably where I'll be staying for a long time to come. Come join us, let the geekness flow through you....

Speaking of which I will remember to take a picture of my latest modelling project and post it just as soon as I remember where I left the batteries for the camera.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Well despite still getting a lie in on Sundays it never seems quite long enough. Mind you even if I was able to sleep in as long as I wanted I probably still wouldn't think it long enough :-)

I took Grumpys car to church, mainly for simplicity as his was blocking mind in and I can't really play musical cars with them by myself in a road as small as ours. I was pleased to see however that for the first time in a few days the temperature gauge was actually in the 'plus' rather then minus. Maybe it is getting milder after all.

Again the photocopier co-operated which considering my usual lack of success with technology is slightly worrying as I'm sure it's setting me up for a fall. Not that it would have mattered that much if it had failed to co-operate as there wasn't any news this week anyway.

The YSA Sunday school class was full to busting. I'm no longer the class president though, not that I was ever officially it to begin with. The others decided by general consensus that they thought someone else should now do it, so now one of the girls is class president instead.

After Church I had to leave quite quickly as I had to go to the pet food store. I know that it was slightly naughty going there on a Sunday but it was kinda emergency as Owen needed a new collar urgently otherwise we wouldn't have been unable to take him out for a walk. We can't let him out in the garden as he runs into the garden ajoining out at the top as there is a gap under the fence. So of course I had to walk into a pet food store in full suit and tie which got a rather strange look from the girl behind the counter because lets face it I was rather overdressed to go shopping for a dog collar!

I also got Owen a frisbee which proved to be a big hit when we took him for a walk as he thought it was great fun. However his main problem was that he runs so fast after it, he kept overshoting it when it landed as he couldn't stop in time which lead to several mildly amusing tumbles/skid turns as he tried to stop and grab it.

We also had a visit from the home teachers which was good timing as the house was tidied today so they came into a totally clean lounge for once :-) In my somewhat lame attempt at a defence of the mess there are only two guys in the house and no female so it's never go to be spotless and yes no one needs to tell me quite how lame that attempt was.

I did manage to get some converting of models done. I will post some pictues of my finished creations as soon as I remember too.

Work tomorrow, so I for see another week of opportunities ahead. Hopefully they will be easy ones rather then hard opportunities but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Ah Saturdays. The morning of rest where you can lie in and get up much later then usual as you don't have to go to work. Or at least that was the plan; which was shattered by Owen charging down the stairs barking his head off and leaping at the door as the post arrived. Whether this is his way of telling us the post has arrived or he thinks that he has to defend us from the postman is a fact unknown to us and Owen isn't telling. Which is a stupid statement really as he's a dog and couldn't tell us, though if he could we could probably make a fortune off him and I'm sure I had a point when I started that sentence.

Yes dear readers in case you haven't guessed it has been on of those saturdays where I've seemed to begoing here, there and everywhere in rapid succession. From the bank right the way through to morrisons I seem to have been having to go to all sorts of places today.

It was also extremely cold as well. Which seemed to make the weathermens confident forecast that the weather would be getting milder this weekend even more stupid. If this is there idea of the weather getting milder I'd hate to see what their idea of the weather getting colder is.

I also had problems this afternoon because as Grumpy had gone out for the afternoon Owen was extremely unsettled and kept rushing to the door what seemed like every two minutes to see if he had come back yet. I also took the decision to try and take him for a walk which possibily wasn't such a great idea as we first ran into a group of dogs that he started growling at, I managed to wrestle him back onto the lead to give time to the other owners to disappear with the dogs. At which point a runner appeared who Owen took exception to and started to bark at her and sit in the path blocking her way, obivously feeling that it was his field and she shouldn't be there and finally when i got him back onto the lead I noticed that his collar was spilting so I had to rush him home before it completely broke. We're going to have to buy him a new one. I think it's his 5th collar since we got him, he just keeps breaking them which is probably down to him always pulling on the lead. So I suppose if we don't want to have to keep buying collars we're going to have to either get him to stop pulling or see if anyone makes a dog's collar out of titanium.

2nd episode of Demons was on tonight. It was okay, I don't think it's as bad as some people like to make out. It's main problem is that it's just 'okay', it's not great but it's not bad either, it's just okay which unfortunatly makes it quite forgettable which is not a good thing for a series on it's 2nd episode. I think it really needs to improve if it is to have a chance. All the potential is there, Iguess we'll just have to see how it goes.

Church tomorrow, so another morning of trying to keep the moral high ground and not challenge the two individuals who have ben making fun of me behind my back. I still don't know what I'm going to do about YSA FHE on monday and whether or not I want to go. I think that will depend on if the students are back as if physics is here I'll feel a bit more confident with at least one person I'm sure I can count on. If he's not there I don't know if I want to sit there all night alone. I just don't know right now and I think that's the main problem. I just don't know what to do now.

Anyway, I guess I'll just have to take things as they come and see what happens.

Friday, January 09, 2009

It's Friday. Yaah! Which means it's the end of another week and two whole days to myself which is always nice, plus I actually have a plan to do something constructive this weekend.

No really I will!

The weathermen have forcast that the weather is supposed to be getting milder this weekend.

Ha!

I'll just say that again Ha!

I say Ha as it actually got icey this evening for the first time in three days, so quite how this is the weather getting milder I have no idea. In fact it got so icey it was starting to freeze inside the windscreen as well as the outside. This did of course mean that after cleaning the outside I had to wait for the inside to defrost, mainly by running the heaters at maximum hoping that the window would clear soon and the car would heat up so I won't be freezing and if the worse did happen and I did freeze hopefully I would freeze in a dignified postion.

Walkers are releasing some new flavour crisps which are the result of a competition to find a 'new flavour. Apparently these six flavours will be on sale until May when there will be a vote to see which one is kept as part of the range for good. The flavours are Chilli and Chocolate, Crispy Duck with Hosin sauce, Fish and Chips, Builders breakfast, Onion bhaji and last but by no means least Cajun Squirrel. Walkers say the competition proved a great insight int the snack tastes of Britain. I say it also provided a far too scarily in depth look into the psyches of some parts of britain.

Barack obama will be appearing in a special edition Spider-man comic which will be released next week, where spider man will save the day after a imposter tries to take obamas place during his inauguration. It seems a little odd but I'm sure copies of this comic will start going for stupid prices on ebay very quickly!

The winner of todays " I've obivousily got far too much free time" is the person who has written up the entire plotline of the new version of Battlestar galactica in the form of Facebook status updates. Yes it is probably totally crazy but it will probably be read by a heck of a lot of people.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

In the news today in Lincolnshire UFO enthusiasts are claiming damage to a wind farm turbine was caused by a UFO.The turbine lost one 66ft (20m) blade and another was badly damaged in the early hours of Sunday. So if these enthusiasts are correct and it was damaged by a UFO they obivousily believe that there are aliens out there who have the technology and craft to leave their homeworld, travel intergalactic distances to observe us but yet somehow fail to notice a Wind turbine before they fly into it! Of course if they are right theres probably a bunch of aliens flying around bemoaning the loss of their billion mile no claims discount!

Yes folks in case you haven't guess it's been another one of those odd days today where it seems like I've had lots to do and I've done lots but not really seemed to get anything done if that makes any sense?

Interesting movie news. A new Judge Dredd film has been greenlit which is great news. Well it can't be any worse then the orginal with me Sly " I knew you'd say that' stallone. Seriousily, I knew you'd say that isn't even a Dredd catchphrase. But I suppose to be fair that movie did have some flashes of the 'normal' Dredd character from the comics. Like near the beginning where he proceeds to place two whole city blocks under arrest all by himself.

And it also seems that the vogue for trying to resurrect film franchises is catching as the trailer for the new film Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li has just been released. It looks interesting in a " it will be a bit of mindless fun to watch for a hour or so" that is if most people don't get distracted by Kristen " Lana lang from Smallville" Kleuk appering in it and spend most of the time wondering when superman will turn up.

Well only one more day until the weekend which should be fun as I have a urge to build something using my stash of model bitz in the garage. No idea what, mind you I guess I'll just see where inspiration takes me.

Well later this Month Obama will be taking office, a event that I’m sure many comedians especially those who comment on the news like John Stewart will have mixed feelings about as this means Bush will be leaving and lets face it he was a easy target wasn’t he? Well there was an article on the BBC website about the some of his most popular “bush-ism’s” and here are a few that I thought were especially funny.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Ah it's that time of the year, when the new year has barely begun, most of us are still keeping our new years resolutions and some new seasons of our favourite tv shows finally, finally begin! and we no longer have to put up with what seems like repeats every other night. In the next two weeks we have the new series of Numb3rs, NCIS, CSI and CSI New york all starting, which in turn hopefully means the new series of House and Greys anatomy are not far behind either.

Despite it getting very cold elsewhere in the country the weather null zone that seems to appear around Geektown from time to time seemed to have decided to come back from holiday so while other places had snow, ice and got so cold the sea started to freeze we got...

Rain.

Well if nothing else you can still say that it qualifies as typical English winter weather.

I'll be glad when January is over as all the adverts for fitness DVDs will disappear. It getting a bit stupid know as you see people who used to be in a band ten years now released Fitness DVDs and appearing everywhere saying that they lost weight and were so happy and now they want to share their secrets with everyone else so they can make them happy and loose weight and are no way interesting in the buckets of money that they will be making from selling these things!

Work was good, if a bit slow today. It was also a bit for want of a better term, bitty, where I seemed to have lots of small things to do but it didn't seem like I managed much at all. I know that's a awfully bad description of what I was trying to say and I hope that you get what I mean.

Stll, only two more days until the weekend and the first full working week of the year will be over and hopefully I will have also completed one full week of my resolutions too. I am so doing everything I can to stay away from the vending machines and their sweet siren song of choclately goodness.......

Okay I so need to go and do something now to keep my occupied. Time for reading me thinks. I have a huge pile of books I need to catch up on.

Big news today from the research bureau of the “ We’ve got nothing better to be doing right now” university, apparently playing the game Tetris can help reduce the effects of traumatic stress.

Apparently volunteers were exposed to distressing images, with some of these people given Tetris to play 30 minutes later. According to the researchers players had fewer ‘flashbacks’ perhaps (in other words they don’t know) because it helped disrupt the laying down of memories.

The hope is that the study could aid the development of new strategies in minimising the impact of Trauma. However, the researchers have accepted that translating their findings into practical applications could prove difficult.

Now a couple of thoughts occur, one what findings? Yes they may have fewer flashbacks but they don’t seem to know why and secondly who the heck thought up this study? Who sat there and thought I wonder if playing Tetris can help reduce the effects of traumatic stress.

Also if people are getting flashbacks from the images what the heck did they show them? After reading this story I did get a mental image of a room full of professor Fink clones coming up with ideas.

Finally why Tetris? Did they start off with that after one of the researchers suddenly thought one day, “ Gee I wonder if playing this will help reduce the effects of traumatic stress?” Or was Tetris all they were left with after several unreported and unsuccessful studies. “ We’re tried Resident Evil, Call of Duty, Fall out 3, Doom and silent Hill. No luck and all we’ve got left is Tetris. Like that’ll work but I guess we ought to try it anyway.”

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Now I was expecting the Car to be iced over this morning, don't get me wrong. With temperatures of -5 forecast overnight I wasn't expecting anything else, however what I was not expecting was the incredibily thick sheet of ice that I found which had complete frozen the locks on the Car door. After some quick thinking and use of De-icer I was able to get the drivers side door open to find that the inside of the windscreen had frozen as well as the outside. Which lead to the surreal moment of me having to use my ice scraper insdie the car rather then outside.

Still backing out of the drive I reflected that the rest of the day couldn't be anywhere as surreal as that!

Work was good, if busy. We also had some new books arrive today which is always interesting if frustrating as the temptation to pick up one of the books and start reading is always very high, especially when it is one you've been waiting for.

Day two of my resolutions and things are still going strong. I've managed two days now without a visit to the vending machines which is good. I now it doesn't sound like a lot but you've got to start somewhere. Hopefully it will get easier as time goes on.

It's apparently going to go down to -11 overnight, so I'm really glad I don't have to go out anywhere this evening.

I've just realised that I didn't metion the top secret cool thing I did just before christmas that was intended as a Christmas present for a couple of people. Basically what it was, was a new version of the book I did for Engineseer leaving present ( so his is still one of a kind) with new layout, some new content and text etc. I know one person liked it and hopefully the other person did as well.

The last of the woolworths stores closed today so it's now gone. Which is a real shame as the high street won't be the same place without it.

Monday, January 05, 2009

I was expecting it to be cold this morning and quite probably a little frosty. However what I was not expecting was the smattering of snow that had fallen at somepoint over night then proceeded to freeze so it was that odd combination of snow and ice that you sometimes get. So as you can imagine by this point I was a little unsure if somebody was trying to tell me something. I was going back to work, it was a Monday, it was still Dark and now somebody being it fate, irony or the weather had decided to throw my least favourite driving condition into the mix.

Still after five minutes hard work using the scraper I had managed to clean enough of the car so I could at least see where I was going. I also had to clean ice off the Headlights which was a first. I wasn't feeling too confident as I headed out of geektown as the gritters had failed to do their work and the roads were very icey. However once I had the major roads the conditions improved dramatically, but I was still very careful in my driving as it would be very bad to have another accident. Not bad in the sense that I would damage the car, more bad in the sense that Grumpy would never let me hear the end of it if I did it again:-)

Work was good if very, very busy. Although everyone was back the office was quite quiet as everybody seemed to be extremely focussed on there work as we all tried to get back into full work mode after the Holidays. It was also hard as it was the first day of putting my new years resolutions to the test. No snacks and no caffeine. Still I was feeling pleased with myself by the end of the day as I was able to resist the lure of the vending machines and didn't visit any of them at all. The Caffeine headaches have not kicked in yet. I'm sure I'll have that pleasure tomorrow, still I'll be making sure I take some ibuoprofen with me and as I was low on my intake of Caffeine they shouldn't last too long.

(he says hopefully)

I got home to find Grumpy none too pleased with Owen as Owen seems to have decided to play hide and seek with Grumpys right slipper. We've spent most of the evening searching the house but we can't find that darn thing anywhere. So goodness knows what he did with it. Hopefully we'll find it soon so we don't have to put up with comments from Grumpy about how cold his feet are without his slippers!

I'm off to bed now. It's supposed to get very cold overnight getting down to -5. We're supposed to be in the coldest cold phase for a decade. Which in turn I'm sure has prompted the largest number of jokes about global warming in a decade as well.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

The photocopier was once again behaving this morning which still has me convinced that it's waiting to lull me into a false sense of security. Due to recent events I have been spending a lot more time rechecking the bulletin and trying to get it to the bishopric even earlier to give them more chance to read and approve it, however one rather glaring error crept through which didn't become clear to me until mid way through the fast and testimony meeting when I suddenely realised that I had put the date as 2008 rather thne 2009! I resisted the edge to bang my head onto the back of the pew in front of me when I realised was a stupid basic error I had done when I reflected that if that is the worse mistake I make all month I've got nothing to be worried about.

Sunday school was... well it was hard. We've got three new lads have just come up from youth who are full of energy I guess is the best way to describe it. However this was a non issue compared to my main problem which was struggling to keep myself on the high ground try to resist the urge to say something to one of the two YSA who appear to have been using this blog to take the mick out of me. Of course the trouble dwelling on this is that my thoughts started to stray down somewhat paranoid paths. As in wondering if this person hangs with them are they also in on this? Do such and such know as their on facebook too and so on and so on. I know too much thinking like this usually ends in a long term visit to a room with soft padded walls and even softer food but the problem I have now is I'm not totally sure who to trust anymore. I just don't seem to know any of them as well as I thought I did. I think I'm starting to see why many YSA start to find things hard when you reach a certain point and begin to feel very much alone in a crowd.

Of course as I'm trying to maintain the moral high ground and just grin and bear things ( stupid I know) theres not really a lot I can do about it so I guess I should just forget it for another week. The real test will be a week on Monday when YSA FHE starts again and I will have to see them outside of church. Right now I honestly don't know if I want to go.

I'm still having no luck with tracking down the theme music from Earth to the moon in a format that I can download or buy that will be able to play on my Ipod. It's really annoying as the Itune store seems to have every other piece of music the guy has written apart from the one I want!

I did see something incredibily funny in then news. This years 'celebrities' ( and I use the term in inverted commans' in celebrity big brother are so Z list that not even some of the people in the house actually recognise some of their fellow contestants. Yes that sound you hear isn't so much the bottom of the barrel being scraped as it being due right through!

We also had fun trying to put the Christmas decorations up in the loft. The hatch is just the right side for Tap Dance to get through. For Myself and Grumpy a few awkward moves are required. Still all the decorations back up there now ( the house looks boring now :-) We've set ourselves a goal to start tiding the loft out and start laying the boards we've had still in the garage for ages.

Well it's back to work tomorrow. And I'm glad as I think I've had just the right amount of holiday to allow me to get everything constructive I needed to get done, done. Any longer and I would have just started wasting time.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Well after intense speculation in the press as to the 11th Doctor Who, Will it be David Morrisery? Will it be James Nesbiett? Will the products hire the first coloured actor, Greg patterson to hire the doctor or change things even more by hiring a actress and turning him into a woman? The new Doctor was revealed with much fanfare at the end of a very long special program (which had me yelling at the TV " Just get on with it and show us" once or twice) and the new doctor is Matt smith!

If your first reaction is "WHO?" then your not alone as that was my first reaction as well. Apparently he's appeared in a couple of programmes which don't seem to be that well known ( well I didn't see them and regular readers will know how much I usually watch TV). He's also going to be the youngest Doctor who ever and I'm betting that the internet is already alight with people moaning that he's too young to be the Doctor. Still I suppose we should give him a chance as everyone was screaming about Catherine Tate becoming the Doctors new Companion and that turned out very well. And if all else fails lets remember that if he is bad they can get rid of him easily enough :-)

The new series "Demons" started on ITV 1 tonight. It's been unfairly called a male version of 'buffy' with the lead character a guy called Luke and oh yes they did manage to squeeze a " USe the force" joke in there and he's the last of the Van Helsing Line so he has special abilities that will enable him to hunt down the baddies. I've seen a lot worse and I think as a series it has a lot of potential especially if they can develop the universe quickly enough to stop throwing in in jokey references to the Dracula novels. Also if they can improve the character of Lukes friend Ruby, she has the potential to become either really annoying, or the damsel in distress every week. Although the most interesting twist/retelling to the Dracula mythos was in the film Dracula 2001 which I must warn you was the only interesting thing in that the film whatsoever.

One big plus side for Demons is that they've got Zoe Tapper

playing the character of Mina Harker ( yes, yet another reference to the novel but clever this time). The actress also appears in the new version of Surviours from the BBC ( she landed two major roles in two major series on two different channels her agent must be good) and her character in that is also one of the better ones as well. (Oh word of warning don't watch the first episode of surviours if you have a cold or the flu, otherwise you might start to get worried:-). She seems very adept at playing characters with a vulnerable side which seems to want to bring out the chivarlious side in you. No? Okay just me then :-)

Still thinking about it there has been several strong female characters appearing in Sci fi/ fantasy series right now. The Character of Morgana in the series Merlin is another good example of this.

Hopefully in the next series they will give her more screentime as the character ( and the actress of course :-) are one of the full things from the first series that most people agree worked right!

Right what was I going to say before I went off in a ramble? Oh yes, today, pretty standard Saturday. Get up, go into town, get shopping etc. However in a slight change we met up with the majority of the Driver Clan for Lunch as they were down this way, which was nice and a lot of fun. The food was good too.

We're going to have to take the Christmas decorations down now which will be a lot of fun as we're going to have to get up in the loft to get the boxes, bring them down, fill them up then put them back up in the loft. Which is always a lot of fun. Not!

Church tomorrow. Which should be interesting in the sense of seeing if I can successfully keep the moral high ground and ignore those two YSA. Grumpy was asking if I'm going to try and find who my secret Santa was. I'm in two minds about it, I mean I am intrigued to know who it was, but on the other hand I don't know if want to know as it might destroy the 'magic of it' and besides I'm happy with the knowledge that I do have friends there who will do things for me even if I don't know who they are.

Friday, January 02, 2009

The only problem I seem to face when I start cleaning out is what I call the " I was wondering where that went syndrome". Basically you suddenely find something that you had been looking for and you couldn't find and now that you've found it you want to look at it/ use it/ listen to it etc, etc and you slowly start to forget the fact that your supposed to be cleaning!

I had real trouble with this today when I started cleaning the shelves in my rooms as I started finding no end of bits that threatened to distract me from what I was supposed to be doing. Cleaning!

Still at least I was able to find a lot of odd socks that had been lying around and who knows? Maybe one or two of them might even match up.

There was a couple of interesting bits of entertainment news today. The first and probably most important, well most important to me and scully anyway is that the new Doctor Who is apparently going to be revealed in a special programme broadcast tomorrow night at 5.35pm. There's even rumours that the new Doctor will be a woman! Be sure to tune in tomorrow night where I'm sure I'll give my reaction. If you don't want to know who the 11th Doctor will be then never reading tomorrows post will be a good plan :-)

The second bit of news I noticed was that one of the actresses from Greys anatomy is pregnant but the pregancy won't be written into the script. In which case I'm sure the game of " Hide the pregancy" will begin soon. Watch for whichever character suddenly shoots a lot of scenes sitting down, holding boxes, wearing extra big lab coats, or generally only ever seems to appear in shots from the shoulder up.

Of course with these two pieces of good news there is one. Three little words that should strike fear and terror into the hearts of any sane person who reads them. " Celebrity Big brother" Ahhhhhh!!!! It's started again. Why, why? Do channel 4 hate us all? Have they decided that as they don't get any of the license fee their going to subject us all to weeks of z list (or lower) so called celebreties trying to coax a phoenix out of the shattered remnants of their careers?

I think I'll be watching a lot of DVDs over the next few weeks me thinks.

As part of my plan to get more exercise I actually went with Grumpy when he took Owen out for a walk. The whole time Owen kept looking over his shoulder at me, then at Grumpy as if to say " Why's he here? "

Grumpy also seems to have decided to try and improving his cooking skills as he actually cooked a casserole tonight and despite his claims of not knowing how to it came out remarkably well. He hasn't made any new years resolutions though as he said he's still keeping the resolution he made last January.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Well I suppose that will only be on the 1st January 2010 that we will truly be able to offer a indepth judgement to 2009 and whether or not it was successful or even different in relation to 2008. However the 1st January 2009 started off pretty much the same to most mornings in 2008 with Marmite on toast for breakfast. I did probably spend far too much time pondering whether or not I should try variying my breakfasts a bit more by eating more ceral, but in my defence I really didn't have anything better to do while the toast was doing :-)

After some ponderings I have decided on a new set of resoultions for 2009. And in the same way as last year I will reveal them partly because I needed something to blog about today and partly if I don't write them down I'll probably forget.

Exercise more

Loose some weight

Keep making at least one blog post for every day I am able to do so.

Make another new friend

Learn a new skill

Finish the project I have had lying around for a while now which is called " Hecate" ( I will reveal more if anyone is interested)

Have a good honest clear out of all my belongings and try to get rid of anything I don't really need anymore.

So admitally there are three less resolutions then last year but I think I have a good chance of keeping the ones I have set for myself so I can class them all as successes by the end of the year.

Asides from that I haven't got up to much today. Boring I know but hey it's a holiday so I can kick back and relax if I want too. I know it's not that constructive but it's still fun.